TampaBLAB

Not the best video in the world, but if you fast-forward to the 2:22 mark, you will see Willy Aybar making a nice grab while playing third base for Licey in the Dominican Winter League. Not sure how updated these numbers are, but Aybar was hitting .286-0-9 with a .712 OPS in 15 games for Licey.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA...

• JP Howell was the 118th player to appear in both the College World Series and the Major League World Series. [bNet]
• Joe Maddon is back in his hometown of Hazleton, PA to visit family and help raise funds to renovate the auditorium of his former high school. [Times-Leader]
• Rays Party of America shows that the Rays' bullpen had the second slowest average velocity in baseball. [Rays Party of America]
  
• The Rays made the Joe Nelson signing official yesterday. [The Heater]
  
• The Rays resigned Jon Weber to a minor league deal. Weber is nice to have around considering he has been on a playoff team eight straight seasons and in six of those seasons his team won a championship. The Rays also signed three other minor leaguers including Ray Olmedo, a shortstop who has played parts of five big league seasons with the Reds and Jays. He will likely serve as the Rays glass case middle infielder. You know. Break only in case of emergency. Ray Sadler is an outfielder, who played 3 games with the Pirates in 2005 and spent last year at double-A and triple-A in the Astros' organization hitting 25 home runs in 126 games. Finally there is Doug Salinas, a right-handed pitcher. Salinas posted a 5.53 ERA in low-A last year in the Mariners' organization. That was actually good, considering it was 5.91 the year before in the same league. Another 5 years or so, and he might be ready for double-A. [Baseball America]
• Rob Quinn of Examiner.com has some New Year's resolutions for the Rays. [Examiner.com]
  
• Rays Prospects takes a look at how some Rays performed in the lower-level Venezuelan Winter League. Rays prospects in this league come from the Rays' Venezuelan Summer League team, the Princeton Rays and recent international signings. [Rays Prospects]
  

At the end of 2007, I asked Sarasota County Librarians to name the worst book they’d read that year. Now, it’s the end of 2008 and time for more worst picks!

I give you What Not to Read: 2008 Year-End Edition* (from all library staff who responded in time):

• “While I Was Gone” by Sue Miller.
  Library Staff Person #1 said, “While not terrible, [this was] the one book I started but couldn’t get through….The characters were just too privileged—I probably could have guessed that if I’d looked at the subjects [in the catalog!], but I bought it from the Friends [bookstore] to take to California.”
• “The Final Warning” by James Patterson. The most recent book in the “Maximum Ride” series definitely not recommended by Library Staff Person #2.
• “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” by Kim Edwards.
  Library Staff Person #3 said, “Not a new book but I  picked it up and kept reading. Don’t recommend it even if it did become a movie.”
• “Lush Life” by Richard Price and “Prisoner of Birth” by Jeffrey Archer.
  Library Staff Person #4 said, “[These two] are neck and neck for worst read. Yeah, I read both of them all the way through. ‘Lush Life’ was supposed to be about the Lower East Side—atmospheric—but other than the name of a street or subway stop, it bore little relation to the actual place. And Jeffrey Archer writes like Danielle Steel!” (Someone must not be a Danielle Steel fan!)
• “Duma Key” by Stephen King and “The Senator’s Wife” by Sue Miller.
  Library Staff Person #5 said, “You know the one I couldn’t get more than a few pages into was ‘Duma Key’ by Stephen King. I just couldn’t relate enough to the characters to make me want to read such a big book about them…..I also was really irritated by ‘The Senator’s Wife’ by Sue Miller. I thought it had a very cheap ending, even though I enjoyed the first half of it.”
• “Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village” by Laura Amy Schlitz, illustrated by Robert Byrd. (This is the 2008 Newbery Medal Winner.)
  Heather the Librarian said, “I couldn’t read it, and apparently no one else wanted to bother either. See the reviews: here and here.”
• “Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea” by Chelsea Handler.
  Laurie the Librarian (that’s me!) said, “It had some humorous parts, but not nearly enough of them. I wanted very much to like the author and this book of essays about her life, but she just didn’t appeal to me. Or, maybe I just don’t understand her. Either way, it was bad.”

Find even more worst books of the year from….

….the Discussion Board on Bookcrossing.com

….the Reading Copy Book Blog from the staff of ABE Books

….the Seattle Examiner’s 10 Worst Books of 2008

….TimeOut New York’s The best (and worst) of 2008

….EarlyWord’s The Worst Books — Now We’re Talking!

….Entertainment Weekly’s 5 Worst of 2008

Do you have a pick for worst book of 2008? How about best book of 2008?

Email me at sclibs@yahoo.com or librarywebmaster@scgov.net or submit a comment here and let me know what you think.

Happy new year of reading in 2009!

*Library staff believe in your freedom to read whatever you choose. Our opinions are just, well, our opinions.

Post inspired by LISNews.org’s: 5 Worst of 2008.

Posted at 7:19 a.m. on Dec. 29. Posted at 12 p.m. on Dec. 29....

To: Kate
From: Doc
Subject: A Christmas Prayer

Dear Lord,

Thank you for another year... I know I probably didn't do as much as you wanted me to, but thanks for forgiving me for that, too.

Thank you for looking out for me again this year... and thank you for the people I met, good and bad. Take care of those people I've lost, look after those I've lost touch with and those who've lost touch with me. Thank you for watching over us all... Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and agnostics, pagans and everyone else. You know many of us probably don't deserve it... but I guess that's grace for you.

Thank you for not forgetting me, when I forgot you. Thank you for not taking me too seriously, and giving me miles to go and mountains to climb. Thanks for not taking me in vain, though I used your name that way a few times... well... a lot of times.

Thanks for minimizing the bullies in the world and providing them with the Darwin Award to aspire to.

Thanks for the abundance you've given me... but also thanks for the things you've taken away. It's been through the things I've lost that I have learned to appreciate the blessing, gifts and talents you've given me more.

Thanks for the angry people in my life, because looking at them taught me how I don't want to appear to others. Thank you for the ignorant people in my life for showing me why I have to keep learning so as not to embarrass myself in front of others. Thank you for my ex-wife, who proved to me how selfish, self-centered and foolish one person can be when they believe they can do no wrong... and how many people they can hurt without caring.

Thanks for my disabilities... but thank you even more for my abilities, my sense of humor and fairness. Thank you for making me scrupulous and having an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong.

Thanks for my parents... for the time I had with them... and showing me what I missed when they weren't in my life.

Thanks for my doctors... though I don't always trust them, but they have had some success in making me a healthier if somewhat different person than I was before... I think it's the drugs.
But, most of all thank you for You... and I pray in the coming year that those who don't really know you, those who view your word as inflexible, not dynamic, and locked in time may have the broomsticks removed from their asses and finally see the beauty in their neighbors... not because the Constitution tells them they have to... but because You do.

Amen.

Have the best New Year, Kate!

The fabulous Jon Swift has compiled his annual Best Blog Posts of 2008, which is a holiday cornucopia of wit, wailing, and wisdom submitted by the bloggers themselves. Dear Readers, there is so much good stuff there, you might as well set aside some time, make yourself an extra-large coffee with lots of cream and sugar (you're giving all that up tomorrow, right?) and settle in with a cuddly kitteh or two.

(Speaking of cuddly kittehs, Jon has scattered various spot-on lolcats throughout the long, long post. I'd better hurry up and finish this post--if Son Three sees this, he's going to want to sit on my lap and spend the next hour scrolling through I Can Has Cheezburger, and there goes the morning.)

For my part, I submitted a short (one sentence!) post, entitled To Those Who Muse About "Spreading Democracy" on This Day of Fidel Castro's Retirement that I wrote for litbrit back in February (it includes a Pablo Neruda poem). Unbeknown to me at the time, Mr. Swift had linked to that very post in a piece that he wrote, shortly thereafter, about the ridiculous embargo on Cuba. Weird, but unsurprising, given how many similar "weird" things happen when like minds join forces in the ether and...oh, hell, I can't do self-promotion without sounding like a complete New Age ass, so just go and peruse Swift's Hall of Awesomeness, okay?

(P.S. Thank you for taking on this enormous task, Jon; cheers and kisses to you, as always, for promoting us little guys.)

And Sir C, I swiped this one for you, though I'm sincerely hoping it's not one of your '09 resolutions :

Ok, we always provide you with the best things to do in Tampa Bay, so when this came across the computer screen, we just had to share.  This just in from the City of Tampa –

Welcome Iowa and South Carolina fans to Ybor City!  The 23rd Anniversary Outback Bowl Parade and Pep Rally will take place today (New Year’s Eve) from 5:30pm - 8:30pm.  The event includes a parade of high school bands and the two college bands followed by a pep rally on the corner of 14th Street and 7th Avenue.

On-street parking and public lot parking in the area will available until 1:00pm (firm).  Parking signs will be installed stating “No Parking After 1pm”. Cars must be removed by 1:00pm to avoid towing.  Pedestrian barricades will be installed starting at 1:30 pm on 7th Avenue from 14th St. to 20th St.  No on-street parking will be permitted between 20th St. and 26th St. 

7th Avenue from Nick Nuccio Parkway to 21st Street and north/south side streets from 6th Ave to Palm will be closed by 3:30pm, unless crowds call for an earlier closure. Westbound traffic on Palm will be allowed to turn south on 15th Street to utilize the Centro Ybor Valet and Palm Ave Garage. The event will end at approximately 8:30pm. The pedestrian barricades will be removed following the parade, and 7th Ave will be re-opened at 9:00pm unless crowds dictate otherwise. 

EVENT SCHEDULE
Event Staging   ……………………………………………..    1:30pm
Parade (on 7th Avenue from 20th to 14th Streets) ………  5:30pm
Pep Rally (Parking Lot at 14th Street and 7th Ave) ……..    7:00pm-8:30pm

Now, if that doesn’t sound like fun, then I don’t have anything else for ya!  Ybor City provides it all...if you are looking for places to eat or where to stay, then head on down.  Plus, they have some fo the best Tampa Bay Nightlife out there!  

In case you need it - for more street closure information, call Tampa Police Department.

See you all out there! 

A

As part of my 2008 New Year goals I wanted to use less plastic bags. I think I did pretty well only using 26 plastic bags, which means I used the green bags and saved 123 plastic ones (yes I kept track.) I did not plan on shopping at this store tonight so I did not have my green or in this case red canvas shopping bags. I sadly took the plastic bags. I noticed on the side of a bag “10 Ways to Reuse Your Target Bag - 1. Tiny Trash Can Liner 2. Doggy Duty 3. Water Balloon 4. Road Trip Rubbish 5. Soggy Laundry 6. Ice Pack 7. Toiletry Tote 8. Kitty Litter Liner 9. Tomorrow’s Lunch Bag 10. Care Package Padding”.

On a side note I found interesting among the midst of the leagal wording was for California residents - “Please return to a participating store for recycling.” Why only California? I’ve seen local Publix stores have this program in the past, why can’t Target have this program also here in Florida?
Since 2008 is almost over guess I need to start working on my 2009 goals. Have a safe New Year’s Celebration and a great 2009 and keep on reading us here at Lakeland Local.

•
Interviews, news, and reviews of Lakeland music, theatre, museum, and more in The Arts in Lakeland.

People are always asking me about places I’ve eaten or food I’ve enjoyed. I think of it as a happy occupational hazard.

I don’t eat at as many restaurants as you might think, mostly because I don’t do formal reviews for the Tribune. If I eat something great, it’s…

It seems to me that if you are interested in selling products marketed to shooters... say, something that every shooter needs like a gun safe... you'd want to make sure you don't piss off someone like Michael Bane.

Just a thought.

As someone currently in the market for a gun safe, a few measly words rattled off in a far away dark corner of cyberspace just convinced me to spend a significant amount of money with a company other than Cannon Safe.

I am also seriously considering avoiding anything with a circuit board. I don't like the idea of a safe that can fail to open without good batteries.

Update:
Seriously. ...

Could you have fantasized better weather for a century bike ride than today's conditions: cloudless sky, Coloradoesque bone-dry humidity, gentle breeze out of the northeast then off the Gulf and 74 gorgeous degrees.

Today was the day my bike friend Nick Griffiths of Moffitt Cancer Center by way of Winnepeg and I had picked to ride 100 miles.

My route would consist of including segments of five off-road PAVED trails or park facilities:

-- Suncoast Trail
-- Jay Starkey Park in south Pasco County
-- Pinellas Trail from Tarpon Springs to Dunedin
-- Upper Tampa Bay Trail
-- Al Lopez Park's 2-mile loop in Tampa

It was a fascinating ride because we included many types of cycling scenarios in between the trail sections, which I estimated took up about 30 to 31 miles of the 100-mile route. Keep in mind we started and ended at my house in Seminole Heights, which is 12 to 15 miles away from the closest off-road paved trail.

In between the paved trail parts we biked in urban roads such as North Boulevard in Tampa; suburban roads such as Bearrs Avenue in the Carrollwood area. Troublecreek Road outside New Port Rickey and Main Street from Dunedin to Oldsmar; and busy commercial roads such as a 4-mile stretch of US 19 between New Port Richey and Tarpon Springs.

It made us appreciate cycling, for example, amid the beautiful open land of the Starkey Park in south Pasco County.

At Mile 22, we stopped at Suncoast Trailisde Bicycles and chatted with Geoff Lanier and Tammy. As the store name denotes, the bike shop is right off the Suncoast Trail at the Target shopping center on State Road 54.


Nick had no problem with cycling the 100 miles. It's amazing that his longest ride up until today was 40 miles. He had a terrific cadence in the final mile and showed no wear and tear from the century.


You see all types of bicyclists at Starkey Park.


The terrain in the Starkey Park is marked by high pines and low palmettos.




Around Mile 80, Nick and I visited the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

I was bicycling near the 30th Street-Fletcher Avenue intersection when this billboard advertisement about Universoty Hospital caught my eye.

Here's a hospital, which theoretically is concerned about people's health, using bicyclists in an ad and they are not wearing helmets.

I should add that one hospital in the Tampa Bay area -- Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg -- has a brain injury prevention program that specifically focuses on getting people to wear bicycle helmets. They participated in the Bicycle Bash by the Bay in October and had a terrific showing.



No bicycle helmet in the University Hospital billboard ad. Maybe University Hospital is trying to create new business for its head trauma unit?

Have you noticed the St. Pete Times is doing some aggressive billboard advertisements featuring a canine watchdog theme.

I was cycling on 30th Street near Busch Gardens in Tampa when I saw this billboard.


Let's take a closer look.

Everybody says the key to being really successful is fulfilling needs, especially those needs that people don't even know they have. Well, here's a golden opportunity that some self-starter should jump all over: Happy New Years* music.

Think about it. The official holiday season starts with Thanksgiving, ends with Happy New Years* and includes all the festivities in between. Yet, the music is completely dominated by Christmas songs. There are a few Hanukkah songs and Kwanzaa songs (no Thanksgiving songs, though, because it's impossible to sing when you're planted on the couch in a gravy-induced coma while the athletic pageantry of Detroit Lions football drones on in the background) but other than "We Wish You A Merry Christmas", in which Happy New Years* gets mentioned one time to every three times for Merry Christmas, the only song there is for Happy New Years* is "Auld Lang Syne", which can only be played once. And that's at exactly 12:00:01 on January 1st. If you miss it then, you have to wait until we take a whole 'nother lap around the sun.

Not only is there only one Happy New Years* song, there's really only one Happy New Years* musician, Guy Lombardo, and he's been dead for over 30 years. That's some serious exclusivity there. Not bad for a Canadian, eh? Even if Elvis had been successful in his effort to have his pal Richard Nixon launch the Beatles in a rocket aimed directly into the sun, he still wouldn't have had the rock 'n roll market sewn up like Guy Lombardo. The only other musician who has made a career out of one friggin' song and been at least somewhat culturally significant is Chubby Checker. Well, and Lipps Inc of course.

I think there's room for an industrious, creative new performer to grab at least a share of that very precise and particular spotlight. It'll take hard work and dedication, but the potential payoff could be huge. Think about it, Happy New Years* is not hindered by cultural boundaries like race and religion. Even Chinese people who won't celebrate the end of The Year Of The Rat until February will still be happy to acknowledge and celebrate the end of The Years Of The Ass without worrying about betraying their heritage. And the timing really couldn't be better, because THIS year, people are more eager to embrace new things than ever before; new leadership, new economic strategies, new episodes of "Lost". Strike while the iron is hot! is what I always say when I heckle blacksmiths.

It's all there, baby, a low-hanging plumb for the picking.

* The correct name of the holiday is Happy New Years and it should always be represented as such. In the photo, Mr. Lombardo is expressing amusement at a faulty balloon that somehow slipped past quality control and made it all the way to the big time at the Waldorf=Astoria grand ballroom. Shortly after this picture was taken, Mr. Lombardo burst the balloon with a lit cigarette which he extinguished by grinding it into the forehead of the hotel's banquet manager, a man whose effeminate manner had offended Lombardo in previous dealings. Later that night, he had that man fired for the unfortunate gaffe, then drove to the man's mother's home and made love to her while two members of his Royal Canadiens forced the man to watch. So say it correctly, you.

Its that time again! I swear it seems like I just sent one out but hey, I guess time flies when you got so many great events and things to do in Tampa Bay!

If you thought that the Super Bowl was all that we had going on then you better look again. January's edition of the Tampa Bay Traveler highlights the Sizzle of Events here in the month of January. From the 2009 OutBack Bowl, to the new Body Worlds Exhibit here at the Museum of Science&Industry, or the annual Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival, you can find a wide range of things to keep you busy until Super Bowl XLIII week starts!

Loved to tell you more, but I don't want to ruin the surprise, so check it out and let me know what you think!

As always if you haven't yet signed up to receive the monthly email then feel free to do so at the top right of this blog page below the banners.